Are there online classes that teach the basics of grading. I know a little about the grading system but not even enough to be dangerous. Any ideas out there? Juan
Not that I know of...your best bet would be to self educate through books, and you can practice by testing your skills on some of the "Guess the grade..." posts here on the CT forum. Although nothing will compare to obtaining "in-hand", personal experience. As someone trying to describe what to look for while grading is subjective and can be interpreted differently from person to person. -LTB
try an ANA seminar, or photgrade, then get to shows and look at a LOT of coins. You can't subsititute in hand grading of a coin through an online photo or a book. You can learn the principles but you can't learn the finer points unless you have the coin in hand.
Has anyone asked him WHAT he wants to grade? There are huge differences in grading systems, and if the OP wanted to collect ancient coins, learning to grade US coins isn't going to help a lot, in fact may do more harm than good. Juan, what kind of coins are you wishing to learn how to grade? Btw, I agree with Cncman, the only real way to learn how to grade is by grading thousands of coins by hand, over and over. Short of that, go to a respected website and try to grade the coin without looking at the grade, and learn from your mistakes.
U.S. Coins and any kind of Bullion (Silver Eagles, Mexican Gold Pesos, Canadian Silver, etc.) I should have been more specific, thank you. Thank you all for giving your advice. Juan
Are you mainly trying to learn how to grade BU coins or all grades? For circulated grades I would use a photograde book and a couple of websites as examples and buy a bag of cents or nickels and start grading. Put them in piles for each grade, and then go back later pile by pile and see if you had errors or did you do a good job. Remember, every coin is unique, so no photograding book or no website photos will apply to every coin. Read the written descriptions as well aas look at the photos of the graded coins. Hands on is really the best way. For uncirculated coins, its harder because its so much harder to tell if you are doing it right. If you wanted a vacation, the ANA puts on summer seminars that teach BU grading, and sometimes large coin shows will have seminars on the topic. I am sure someone here knows a couple of websites that walk you through it, but like I said the hard part I had was telling if what I thought was a 63 was really a 63 or a 62 or 64. For BU grading I find it best to have experts help you. If none of these work, buy a bag of new cents or nickels and try to sort them out by BU grades, and then compare to pics of slabbed coins. Not to be a downer, but the other difficulty in grading US coins is the fact there are so many different grading standards. There is the ANA standards, but the market frequently nowadays uses PCGS or NGC standards, which are not the same as ANA, or even to each other sometimes. It will take many years and much patience before you can ever differentiate those differences, I know I cannot. Hope this helps.
